Galway - Home to the student species

Heeeyyoooo!

In my last blog I spoke of the dramatic price difference between the trains and buses around Ireland. For travellers like ourselves, this price difference leaves buses as our only realistic mode of transport. Unfortunately, the bus service is a little crappy. This can be demonstrated through multiple examples, but I'll just give you one. It seems that 'float' system, which is very effective and popular in the home country, isn't used here. At least not the bus service. Almost every time we've used the bus, the driver has never had the correct change. In this situation, he simply says "Oh, I'll just have to owe you 10 euro, get it off me when you get off the bus". You must buy the ticket on the bus as half of the ticket machines are broken. I could go on all day, but maybe for now I'll just stick to talking about the trip.

I'm currently in a hostel in Belfast rather than a bus where I usually write my blogs. The bus we caught was great for once. The seats were spacious, there was a toilet, it was an ok temperature and above all, it has free WIFI! On a bus! I was stoked. The only problem was that I only had like 17% battery remaining, so it was kind of useless. After both checking our emails and facebook, it turned off, so I couldn't do any blogging.

Soooo! We made it to Galway. 25% of the city is populated by students says the Lonely Planet guide. When Benjamine and myself arrived, we could sworn it underestimated. It seemed that everyone was a student with the very occasional old bird who'd lost her marbles. Young people everywhere ranging from 13-25, this is the 'in' place to be.

Shortly after getting off the bus, we decided it was food time and set out on a mission to find us some mean-ass hot chicken rolls (The Irish know the secret to making a lot of things mean-ass). We'd been undertaking the mission for nearly a whole minute when we spotted two chaps sitting in a park having a monster-mamma-feed. One had dreadlocks halfway down his back and had a wee beard, and the other had insanely long curlyish hair and sported a lovely thick face forest. It dawned on us that in 10 years time, we're going to look exactly like these men. It was scary that we both realised at the same moment that we knew exactly what our future holds. How I wish we got a picture of them. I do apologise for that.

After bargaining our hostel price down from 20 to 17 euro (which is still far too expensive, we'd never paid that much, and don't intend to ever pay that much again) we settled in and went for a walk. Galway definitely isn't a historic site. There isn't that much touristy stuff to see, so we just ended up at a bar, had a few quiet drinks and were in bed by 9pm.

People go to Galway to see the Cliffs of Moher, which is about an hour away from Galway, and is said to be absolutely gorgeous. Just off the coast of Galway are three islands, I can't even remember the names, but while in Galway, most people see those as well. Because of our sheer stupidity, we saw neither of these magestics. Our plan was to go and see the cliffs and islands by ourselves, rather than book a crappy tour. However, a full day tour of the cliffs would have set us back about $30 which is kind of expensive on our budget, but it's for a whole day, with information, with a guide, and we'll probably never get to go back. We thought by going ourselves, we'd save a few $'s, but a return bus trip to the cliff's was about $60. We only found this out the next day, and so we should have booked a tour on arrival in Galway. Stupid.

This is Ben overlooking the cliffs...Actually that's a lie. Because we didn't actually go I just stole this picture off a website to show you what we missed.

Sooooo, for the whole day, we walked around listening to the buskers, drinking coffee, watching the people until we found ourselves listening to two chaps with guitars. Somehow the music reminded me of Lord of the Rings, and I remembered how cool the clothes of the hobbits looked. It was decided that we were to find a pair of suspenders (or braces, whatever you'd like to call them) and wear them that night. We spent the remainder of the day going to every clothes shop to find the cheapest and coolest suspenders known to man, and we achieved that goal.

We got changed and found a Californian girl who agreed that I looked like a lumberjack and Ben looked classy. We hit the pubs and got many stares, and it was beautiful. After watching a grand game of rugby between Munster and Glasgow, three Irish girls found us by our suspenders. Apparently the Californian girl told the Irish girls about two Australian dudes that looked like champions in suspenders. On that description, they managed to find us in a pub, in a city where there is a pub every 1 minute walking. We spent the night with the girls drinking 0.5% alcohol shots, Smith-icks as they call it (rather than SmithWicks, the Irish are lazier than Australians when it comes to speech) and dancing to awful music. They took us to a nightclub called Cuba (The first nightclub we've seen in Ireland) and it's much like an Australian one, but they still sell beer off tap and it takes an hour to buy a drink. All in all it was an enjoyable night out. We got our photo taken for some website too! Oh, and the same nightclub has an upper floor where some metal band was playing. The place was crazy.

Basically Galway was everything you would expect in a city full of students. Very good nightlife and heaps of shops around. 'Tis a large shame we didn't get to see the cliffs or islands, but these things happen.

Next morning we left, got on a bus to Dublin, then a bus to Belfast and here we are.

I promise the next blog will be more interesting.

Hello again!

What a surprise, I'm on a bus again.The bus is the only way to travel around in Ireland. To give you a good example of why we're on a bus, I'll explain the price difference between getting from Kilkenny to Cork by bus or by train. Our bus fare was 18 euro (Roughly $30), which is pretty expensive on a budget like ours. That will mean we can't go out that night. If we were to make the same trip by train, we'd be looking at 40 euro ($60+). Even by car is probably not worth it. The price of fuel in euro would be the same of what we pay in dollars. The price never seems to change, no matter where we go, what day it is or what servo it is. Every station we've seen sells Unleaded fuel at about 129.9 euro. That's like $2 for a litre of bloody petrol! Ahh well, lucky we can't drive eh? That gives us the freedom to have a beer at any time of the day.

After arriving in Cork on Monday, the Canadian couple we met in Kilkenny seemed to vanish once we left the bus station. Two of the Australian girls we met in Kilkenny (Ash and Nat) were hanging around, and since we had no idea what was at Cork, or where we were even going to be sleeping that night, we decided to stalk them to the hostel they were staying at. This hostel wasn't in our little book, but was definitely one of the cheaper one's compared to the pricing we saw elsewhere. After walking around the city for a couple of hours and visited the toursit information centre (Yes Sonja, we actually went to one, I thought you'd be proud), we bought some food for dinner and just spent the rest of the day lazing about the hostel.

Benjamin and myself felt like steak and vegies, but such a feat was far too expensive after our bus trip, and we found that pork was much cheaper. These Irish folk seem to absolutely love their pork. 80% of their sausage section is pork sausage. Their pork chops are cheap. Their pork burgers are cheap. Their pork chicken would be cheap if it existed. Pork pork pork. I'm kind of sick of the word pork now, it sounds weird when I say it. Anyway, we got to the deli section and asked old boy behind the counter for two pork chops. Those porky little bastards were going to set us back 4.5 euro, but that was fine, we just needed some real meat. Shortly after, we found a pre-packeted pack of four pork chops that were marinated, and were pretty big too, bigger than out 4.5 euro porks. These were only 6 euro. We didn't know what to do, but we knew we had to have these marinated porks. Are you supposed to give the plain porks back to the deli man? Do you just put it somewhere and hope no-one see's you do it? We went for the latter, or rather I went for the latter, as Benjamin decided to leave me stranded and bitched off somewhere! I spent almost a good three minutes debating if it was in my ethics to do such a thing, and I came to the conclusion that I wasn't stealing the stuff...Even though they probably would have had to throw it away. In the end, we made away with our four 6 euro marinated pork chops and felt guilty for it. They were worth it though...Mmm I wish I was eating them now.

I should have taken a photo, but the shower in the hostel was like any other I've seen. Instead of having hot and cold taps that control pressure and temperature, there was simply a button. A single button. This button controlled how much and how hot this water would be. Also, the button only works for seven seconds before you have to press it again. When you're the first person to use it for a couple hours, the pipes are freezing, therefore the water is like ice. It's kind of like at home when you turn the water on and wait for the hot water to come through, but because of this button mechanism, you find yourself pushing the button like 8 times before ANY sign of warmness turns up. I guess I'm just having a bitch, but that's the 'in' thing here.


About 30 minutes bus ride from Cork is a little village sort of thing called Blarney, home to the Blarney Estate, which is home to the Blarney Gardens, which is home to the Blarney Castle, which is home to the Blarney Stone, which is home to the Gift of the Gab. Gazillions of magic-searchers come to Blarney to kiss this stone every year since the 1700's. I won't go into too much detail concerning the story, but basically, you kiss this chunk of rock which is on the top of this castle and you are then blessed with the Gift of the Gab - meaning you can tell grand tales for the rest of time. You try not to think of how many before you have kissed it. To describe it...It's cold and smooth. To kiss it, you are dangled halfway down a hole that's about a five floor drop to the ground. By far, the best thing about kissing this bad-boy is the walk you must under-take to get there through the Blarney Gardens. It's a magestic, magic and mysterious patch of earth that I would come all the way back to Ireland just to see again. I've never seen anything so green in my life. Everything was covered in a beautiful moss or overtaken by some kind of leeching plant. I can't express how much I loved my time at the Blarney Estate, but if anyone ever goes to Ireland, they have to visit this place, even if it costs about $15 to get in to!

On our return from Blarney, Beefy Ben thought it would be cool to check out some of this famous Cork music. Unfortunantely Tuesday's are the worst night to see music, but we went anyway. Fred Zeppelin's is the name. As soon as you walk into this place, you feel like a rockstar at a rockstar party, only for rockstars. Such a small bar, but so many different genre's. You had the corner of the bar dominated by a gothic group - like the real old school gothic kind, another group were like the indie people, another group of bearded bastards, a couple metal heads, and the bar attendant was like a punk/hippie girl, if there is a such a thing? Anyway, apart from having INSANELY cheap beer, the upstairs section, which could fit maybe 20 people if you squashed them in, had a little stage where they were having an open mic night. There weren't many people, and so when there was no-one left to perform, most people left, except for four blokes who could all played guitar. Without mic's, they just jammed for a couple hours and we were able to sit there and listen and have a little sing-a-long with them. It was quite intimate indeed and we could have stayed there for another six hours if we all didn't get kicked out.

Next morning we hit up all the touristy stuff, taking pictures of Gaol's, castle's, cathedrals and the like. They were all pretty standard - huge, cool, awesome, expensive etc...But nothing worth talking about. As boring as it sounds, the highlight of my day was probably our dinner. I felt like Bangers and Mash, and by crickey that's what we were going to eat. In this kind of cold, constantly drizzly weather, there seems to be nothing better than a big fat pie, or something like Bangers and Mash. Mmm...Peas with a fat dollop of creamy potato, then sausages, then onion and beefy gravy over it all. Maybe we'll have it again tonight...Ughhhhhh.

-I'll put a picture up later, Ben's sleeping and I need to get the picture off his camera, which he is sleeping on-

We ended up going out again that night and ended up at a traditional Irish bar, where they were playing traditional Irish music, and everything was in the local language, Gaelic. Probably never in my life had I needed to pee so bad when we arrived here and so when I located the facilities I made a mad effing dash! I was faced with perhaps the biggest decision of my life at the most innapropriate time. There were two doors. One said Fir, and the other Maer. Because everything else in the bar is in the traditional language, why make the toilet names any different? They didn't even have a bloody diagram, each door had a big red star. One million thoughts were going through my mind, and so I just decided on Fir. After opening the door and smelling the typical awful smell of a male urinal, I knew I was in the correct room. Thank Christ! I've never, ever been so happy to see that stainless steel wall in my life.

There's been a couple Gaelic words I've picked up along the way, because on all the street signs they have both the English and Gaelic words, but no-one has ever bothered to do that with a toilet.

This has been the longest bus trip we've done, but neither of us are feeling sick yet, so touch wood the rest of the trip continues this well. We're on our way to Galway where apparently I can get my locks fixed. Fingers crossed.

Talk soon!

Weeeeeeeeeeell! How's the crack? Ye takin' the lads out tonight then?

Such a thing is quite standard to ask in Kilkenny, but I'll delve into that further down the post.

I'm sitting next to a window, and the sun is shining through and it got kind of warm (an unfamiliar feeling of late), and it got so warm that I began to sweat a little bit, so I took off my jacket. It's kind of gross, but it was actually good to have the smell of sweat in my nostrils once again. I was starting to miss it. Now though, it's just starting to make me sick.

The bus arrived into Kilkenny vomit-free thank God, but I was doubting my ability to hold that stuff down. About 30km outside of Kilkenny I nearly threw up, the taste was in the back of my throat and everything, and only seconds later I saw a sign telling us that the next 10km was going to be curvy roads with some elevation. This little pig wasn't impressed, but he made it.

Our first impression of Kilkenny was awesome! The air was very crisp indeed. To compare, one could say Townsville's air is like eating a banana and Kilkenny's an apple. A green one at that. Typical of our travel style, we had no idea what we were getting ourselves into, so when we found out that Kilkenny was a town half-trapped in the medieval ages, we nearly let out a little wee. Minutes after getting off the bus, we noticed a big dirty bastard of a church left over from the great ages. I love thow they still use them today for their usual Sunday service. Such a thing makes me sad at the same time, because I know that Australia would never allow something so old (Not that we have anything that old) to still be used. Surely someone would somehow find a way to sue the church because they tripped over a dodgy brick or something. I don't think it's such a big problem here, people know that if they trip over something, it's their own stupid arse fault.



The streets are great! The footpath is only one person wide. Big fat fatties can't really walk on the footpath, so they sort of have to walk half on the road. There were a few roads made out of cobblestone which I found to be quite a treat. The only thing that annoys me in Kilkenny is the stupid effing traffic light crossings. In Australia you have a big button that you push, and shortly after, a little green man says you can walk across the road safely. The idea is similar in Kilkenny, but you have a little iddy biddy yellow spot that you have to run your finger over (not a button, but just a painted yellow spot), and then you wait literally between 5-7 minutes for that little green bastard to turn up. I have no quams with waiting a little while, but not when it's 10 o'friggan'clock at night and it's drizzling and cold as an ice block. Far out man, they need to sort that out because as soon as you stop walking, it seems to drop another 5 degrees.

Since arriving in Ireland, we've been on a mass search for Life-Line stores, or anything remotely similar in order to get some new jackets. By our luck Kilkenny has like 6! Much of our arrival day, we spent shredding the second hand stores and we both made away with a reasonable buy each. After jacketing up with our new jackets, we hit up Dunnes Store (no-one who isn't Irish ever seems to be able to pronounce the name properly and everytime you ask a local, it sounds nothing like how it's spelt, so we're never sure whether we're talking about the same thing. Most of the fellow travellers we've met just call it the D-U-N-N-E-S store) which is a super-market, department store and bottle-shop all in one. Well, to b e fair, every super-market, convenience store or even servo sells grog. We decided on pasta and ate it three nights in a row, I think it's time for a change tonight. We met a German guy in our hostel who we like to call Old Mate. He introduced himself to both of us seperately, but neither of us quite caught his name. Old Mate had hair down to his crack and was an absolute champion in every way. We all went to a place that we know as the 'late' bar. It seems to be a fitting name as we got there at about 9 and there was NO-ONE there. About 2 hours later, the place was booming. I see that strange for a bar, but I'm a pretty strange chap. On that same night I feel in love. There's a beer brewed in Kilkenny, but consumed Ireland wide known as Smithwicks. To describe it would be rather impossible. It's a darker ale, but travels to the gullet much easier than Guinness. It's older than Guinness and more Irish folk drink it. Since my first, that's basically all I've been drinking.



On the second day, Big Boy wanted to go and see all the castles and churches, so we hit that shit up. Most of them had an entry fee so we just admired them from the outside, because that's the stingy bastards we are. The only place we REALLY wanted to see was the Kilkenny Castle, and so we paid their shitty fee of 6 euro (About $9-10). Shortly after we paid their fee, the man behind the counter kindly "reminded" us that we couldn't take any photo's of anything. That dirty shit knew we didn't know that before. Gah, whatever. The castle was still super awesome and there was still all this old stuff everywhere. Whether the chairs, tables and beds were real or just replica's I don't know, but it still looked very real and had the cosy feel of a castle. We had lunch outside the castle which consisted of a big loaf of some kind of bread and ham. I do apologise for no pictures of the INSIDE of the castle...Wait, why am I apologising? You should be angry at that arse at the entry.



After returning to the hostel we met four Australian girls (The first Australian's we've met on the trip) and a girl from Vancouver. It was decided that we were to have a drinking game and go to a bar. It was the first game of Kings I've ever played, and quite obviously I had to scull that shit in the middle...The pub however was fantastic. The band playing was playing 90% traditional Irish folk music. All that cool stuff that we don't have in Australia. Imagine having the entire nation knowing 20 songs like Waltzing Matilda and actually knew the words! I love it! These pale little red-heads have a LOT of culture.

It was this night where I picked up "Weeeeeeeeeeell! How's the crack? Ye takin' the lads out tonight then?". Kilkenny has their own little language that other Irelandites, or anyone else in the world for that matter, wouldn't understand. 'Weeeeeeeeeeell' means hello, it has to be really long when you say it and you have to emphasise the first bit of the eee's and the ll's. There's so many rules. 'How's the crack' basically means how's it going, but you say it more like 'Howzacreck'. There's no distinction between a man and a woman, everyone is a lad, so when you say 'ye takin' out the lads out tonight then', you're asking 'are you going out with your friends tonight?'. When the traditional Irish band stopped playing, there was an upstairs section to the bar. If I was ever starting to miss Australia, I would just go back to the upstairs bar. The upstairs section plays all the Australian 'favorites' like that bullshit Riverside song and that Kei$ha girl who washes her mouth with whiskey. You know the one's that seem to be playing in EVERY club in Australia, EVERY time you walk past and you could swear they all sound like the same song somtimes. Yeah. It was only when I got to this bar when I realised I hadn't heard ANY shit music since coming to Ireland. I'm in my glory.

On the way back to the hostel, I met some guy with dreadlocks who was wearing a SHIRT SLEEVE on his HEAD!! Faaaaark yeah! He gave me the number of a girl who would fix my dreads, and because she likes meeting people, free of charge! We were supposed to leave the next morning for Cork, but who was I to pass up a free opportunity for my dreadlocks to return to cool level?

My only plan for the next day was to get the locks fixed, and her phone was broken all day, so Ben and myself went and watched the soccer (Liverpool vs. Manchester) at the pub with the girl from Vancouver (Lyssa). She invited us and another Canadian couple to go to a place called the Pumphouse later in the night because there was supposed to be a Beatles cover band playing. We went there, and there was no cover band, but in it's place was a band unknown to us, who were playing originals. We sat in awe for maybe an hour or so, not saying a word to anyone. I think the three Canadians thought we were weird, but this band truly was something else. None of the songs were in your face and and every member of the band had sometime insanely unique about their style. Looking around the bar, I could have seen this as being my 'local' if I was ever to live there. So many other people in the bar were in the same state of mind as us. The band didn't even have a stage, but were rather just shoved in a small corner. One of the Canadians bought us all Baby Guinness shots. It's Tia Maria with a head of Bailey's and looks like, who would have guessed, a Baby Guinness!



Currently, we're on a bus heading to Cork. It's supposed to be the best place in Ireland for the live music and such, so God only knows how long we'll be spending there. Two of the Austalian girls and the Canadian couple are on the same bus, so who knows, we may travel with them for a little while more. For now though, I'll get back to my Greenhornes (Cheers Sam) and enjoying the very beautiful and green Irish country lands.

Talk soon jah?

Mornin' lads.

Warning: This blog is pretty bastardly long.

We're sitting on a bus and I feel a bit sick. Ben's having a snooze and sure is a prick.

We survived the 13.5 hour flight to London somehow, and felt like absolute arse. Going through customs was a pain in the dick, thanks to young Benjamin. The lass (demon/witch as Ben himself would say) at the desk didn't believe that he could survive for 4 months on $8,000. Keep in mind that he has his return flight booked and paid for, that we are in fact 'backpacking' and that we have booked and paid for a 45 day long Contiki which includes at least half of our meals and accommodation for every night. Silly bitch. Anyway, after getting a second opinion from some champion, we made it through to the UK. Maybe it didn't help that we didn't know Ireland WASN'T in fact part of the UK. We must look like idiots most of the time, we have no idea where we are.

On the connecting flight from London to Dublin (50minutes), both Benjamin and myself fell asleep sitting upright, a pretty rare feat, especially for my pathetic sleeping ability. We arrived in Dublin on Monday night at about 10pm and found our accommodation without too many hassles. The locals seem to be quite useless in terms of direction, but if you ask someone who's being paid to know, you can find your way pretty easily around. I smelt like a sweaty armpit when we got to the hotel, so after a quick shower, I smashed up that bed like it was a free beer.

The next day (first day) didn't involve much at all. While aimlessly walking through the very cold city, we found ourselves at a small bar, where I had me first real Irish Guinness (so much better than the Australian version, I don't know how that works). The weather seems to make alcohol in general more enjoyable I found also. It's embarrassing to mention, but that afternoon we went back to the hotel and had fallen asleep by 6pm. What makes this more frustrating is that we had been invited to go bar hopping and to see some indie bars in the heart of the city.



St. Patrick's day! Holy eff, what a day. We woke up pretty early, not surprising after falling asleep at 6 the previous day, had a big feed at breakfast (why wouldn't you if it was a free buffet) and smashed up the city centre by 11. A big difference between Australia and Dublin (and probably the rest of Europe) is that we have public toilets everywhere. If you need to pee, there's probably going to be a toilet pretty close by. If you need to pee while walking the streets of Dublin, you have to buy a beer, so you can use their toilet. I'm not complaining, because it's another excuse to have a beer, but it's still pretty inconvenient. Luckily there's a bar on pretty much every corner. On that note, we had our first beer at about 11:15.



There is a huge parade on the main street of Dublin, but because of the vast amount of people who flock to see the spectacle, you can't actually see the parade, but only hear it. There many people who had brought along ladders or bins from home to stand on so they could see and every light pole or piece of wall with a nook or cranny had a person attached trying to catch a glimpse. Naturally, I ended up on Ben's shoulders and got to see a fair bit of what the fuss was about, it was well worth the effort of getting on them. Unlike Australian parades that take hours upon hours, the Irish all know the reason why they're there. They came out to get pissed, so the parade only lasted an hour at the very max. Shortly after, the pubs went crazy.

We met some old boy who went by the very peculiar name of Colm drinking a green Heineken and starting having a chat. He discovered our passion for music and very kindly took us to an old favorite of his known as 'The Rock Bar', which has this awesome statue of Thin Lizzy out the front. After talking for what seem hours, he eventually left us, and we met a group of Irish and Americanish alcohol lovers who were a great spot of fun. It was here that we had our cheeks and eyebrows painted in the Paddy's day spirit. They eventually left, and so after one more ale, as did we.



At the next bar we came across an Austrian couple, Tanja and Wolfgang. Ahh!! What fantastic people. We spent a good amount of time dancing and laughing with them, and about 30 other people in that bar. There will be a lot of photo's of us that we probably won't get to see, but these things happen. After fleeing that place, we found a group of highly attractive girls about our age, and they took us to a joint called 'The Bleeding Horse'. They became bored with us pretty quickly, so they left and we found some rather cool people that seemed to enjoy our company much more. At about 12, we decided we'd had enough and stumbled home and I had the hiccups for about 30 minutes.

Yesterday Big Ben and myself decided to take some happy snaps of Dublin in general, including a few with 'The Moocher' (Please, become a facebook fan) and went to Doyle's, a bar that uni students seem to flock to, with Jenny May, the girl we accidentely ditched for a 6pm nap. I forgot to take my jumper and suffered greatly for it, as it seemed to be the coldest night we'd experienced and a gust that chilled the core. We all survived though.



Unattractive Irish girls seem to not exist, or they just don't go outside, because we haven't met any. Almost every girl we've come across is not simply 'hot' or 'attractive' but rather stunning. Even the old birds turn our heads.



Photo courtesy of Benjamin's creepy nature.

This brings us to the point we're now at. On a bus, with Ben still sleeping, and my motion sickness magnifying, so I think we'll leave you with that. We're on our way to Kilkenny for two nights and then hopefully to Cork, which is supposedly the best place in Ireland for the live music, so God only knows how long we'll be there for.

No Jacka's here boooyyyyz, but we're scared. (A little one for you McCormo ;))

Lads.

Hello chumps!

For those who haven't heard, I'm embarking on a tour of Europe which will hopefully span over the course of eight seasons (two years).
Today is the day finally. With me I have my good friend from many o' year ago, Benjamin Smith who will remain travelling aside me for the next three-four months.



We arrived in Brisbane about two hours ago, and we have another eight hours to wait until the flight leaves, but we're bored of the airport already, so big boy Ben is having a power nap and I've decided to write the first of many blogs. Our flight from Townsville took almost two hours, but only felt like 45 minutes thank God. I really do hope our next flight to Kuala Lumpur is similar. It leaves at 11:25pm and takes eight hours...After spending five hours at the Kuala Lumpur airport, we set off on our 13.5 hour flight to Heathrow airport in London. Then after spending a further three hours at Heathrow, we set off on our final flight of an hour and a half to Dublin.



Ben is snoring...Loudly. Oh and shortly after the plane departed, he realised that his camera is still on charge in his room at home ;)

The ideal plan is to spend our first month of the trip in the UK, the majority probably being in Ireland. On April 20th we start our 46 day Contiki tour through 16 different countries, camping 40 of those nights. Shortly after, Ben will return home and I'll attempt to find some work back in the UK somewhere to save some more money to return to the cool countries I hope to find with the Contiki tour.

We've only reached Brisbane, but have already learnt a couple life lessons concerning international airports. Never buy Subway, never trust a bald man with a beard and never take a dump.

I don't know if this is what I'm supposed to write in a blog, but it will have to do. For now though, I'll get back to being bored.

Cheers boys.